by Leah Fleming
‘How’s things?’ Maddy tried to act normally but the pain gripped her again. It started in her back and then gathered like a tight lasso around her stomach.
This wasn’t right. Dr Klein had suggested she wasn’t due until June, and this was only early April. In her head she knew she should send for Dr Gunn. Better just to lie here and see if it settled down. She couldn’t think straight for the pain. Her slacks were soaking wet, sticking to her legs. Her corset needed unhooking. She felt she was bursting inside.
They struggled to get her clothes off and Maddy into one of Gloria’s old nighties. Gloria rushed down for a basin and a pile of dishcloths, then down again for magazines and the one newspaper. Up and down, her curls bobbing and her cheeks pink.
Between them, they stripped the bed and put towels and papers over between each pain.
‘We ought to call Dr Gunn. If it’s early he’ll know what to do. I’ve never done this before…you’ll have to tell me what to do.’
‘But I don’t know either,’ Maddy confessed.
‘Didn’t you read up?’
‘Only a little bit. I didn’t want to think about it until I had to. I’m sorry…’
‘Then we’ll just get on with it as best we can, keep everything clean and the baby warm. How funny her up in Brooklyn passing over and another life coming in her place. They’ll get one hell of a shock when you show your face with a bundle in your arms.’
‘But it’s too soon. It won’t be right.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Next door’s babby in Peel Street was a seven-month job–and they hadn’t a stitch for it so her gran went and bought a lace burial gown off the second-hand barrow, so as not to waste her money but he’s three year old now, bright as a button, not a mark on him. They just kept him warm by the bread oven until he was up to fighting weight. Babies survive, you’ll see.’
Maddy said nothing, knowing this one would be just over six months old not seven. It seemed like for ever, lying on the bed. Alice came and went to the shop for fags and then on to her hair appointment, unaware that Maddy was hiding upstairs with a flannel in her mouth to stop her groans.
‘Are there only the two of you here now?’ Maddy whispered. If she screamed now she might give the game away.
‘The Old Vic’s like a morgue these days. I’m thinking of packing it in with the Gunns. Babies are hard work and Heather is a right little mitherer, whines all day. Shall I go and fetch someone?’
‘No!’ Maddy gasped as the pain hit her again. ‘Not yet…please don’t leave me, I’m so scared.’
Gloria couldn’t think what to do next. Maddy was in agony and had been sick in the basin, tossing and turning and crying out. Giving birth must really hurt.
Mrs Gunn had gone into a nursing home for two weeks and came back clean, slim and smiling with her bundle of joy as if it were a trip to the seaside.
Gloria knew how babies were born but what to do when they came out was another matter. This labour was going on for hours and she was scared. The kettle was boiled dry for hot-water bottles, on the little electric ring.
It made sense to wrap the babby in hot towels to keep it warm and clean, but they had nothing but clean dishtowels, the ones kept in the second drawer on the left for best, utility towels with red stripes at the end. They would do for a start, and she might be able to snaffle a few bits from the Gunns’ nursery to tide them along. It would give Maddy time to think.
In her heart Gloria knew she ought to go for help, no matter what Maddy insisted–but then she might be in trouble for delivering a baby without help. There wasn’t really time. Her pains were coming so fast now. Maddy’s face was covered in sweat and she kept asking for sips of water. It was hard to know how to comfort her in this state.
‘I need to push now,’ Maddy groaned. ‘Help me!’
‘Like a number two?’
‘Yee…s.’
‘Oh Lord. You’d better squat down like the natives do, then. They can deliver theirs behind a bush and then go back to work, so the missionary said,’ she offered.
‘Well, that’s a lie! This is bloody hard work…oh…Gloria I’m scared.’
‘So am I,’ she whispered, peering between Maddy’s open legs, fearful of what might be there.
Maddy screamed and pushed and something slithered out in a gush–a purple bundle onto the towel and the Gazette. It had a cord dangling.
‘We have to cut the cord. Bitches bite on them and clean up their pups,’ Gloria suggested. They’d both seen enough lambs and pups born to know the score.
‘Wow! It’s come, Maddy!’ she smiled, while Maddy was pushing something else out that looked like a large piece of liver from the butcher’s. There was such a mess of everything all at once.
‘What do we do now?’ she cried, knowing the baby needed air to breathe. It was so small and not like a baby at all, more a tiny doll. ‘It’s a baby boy,’ she offered gazing down at the little mite, not much bigger than the size of her hand. It lay all curled up and silent.
‘We have to make it breathe.’ Maddy looked down. ‘He’s so tiny and beautiful, I’ll blow in his face.’ She scooped up the limp baby and blew and blew. ‘Why isn’t he breathing?’
‘I told you we should have got help. Dr Gunn would know what to do. Let me have a go,’ Gloria snapped, feeling fear trickling up her spine.
The baby’s skin was still purple, his eyes shut and peaceful, all curled up in his own little world like a little skinless bird thrown out of the nest too soon. Gloria was sweating now with fear. The tiny thing in her hands had veins through its glassy skin and still no breath. This was all going wrong. It should be breathing by now. Then she recalled a film where the doctor dunked the baby in water to shock it into breathing. All she had was cold water left and she raced downstairs to run the tap.
Maddy screamed from the bed, ‘Hurry up!’
Up the stairs she struggled, grabbing the baby and dunking it in the water but nothing happened. Seconds turned into minutes and only then was it obvious that there was no life in this child.
‘You should’ve let me go for help, Maddy. Now what are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know, I’ll think of something,’ Maddy sighed, and lay back, overcome by exhaustion, closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep, the baby cradled in the towel by her side.
It was the longest day of Gloria’s life, sitting there, the enormity of what had happened hitting her like a hammer. They had to do something before Alice Nuttall returned. How could Maddy just turn over and sleep like that?
She stared down at the bundle, knowing it was up to her to do something about it now. Poor Maddy needed her sleep after all that pain and effort. She’d have to go back to the Brooklyn as if nothing had happened. No one would be any the wiser but the mess would have to be cleared away–and fast.
The fire was lit downstairs and she could burn the papers and stuff, but how to give this little thing a burial? Perhaps they should call the vicar, but it was too late now for anything proper. Gloria was on her own with this one. It wasn’t fair to be dumped with such a terrible thing but her friend had needed her and they must stick together.
Perhaps one day when she needed a favour Maddy would oblige. That’s what friends did: helped each other out.
There was no time to shillyshally, she must do the necessary, and quick. Better that Maddy knew nothing more about this. In films midwives took stillborns away quietly and put them somewhere. It wasn’t as if the little mite was ready to be born. He’d never breathed–it was just too soon. In a funny way he’d done Maddy a favour in slipping away so quietly. There’d be all hell to pay if anyone found out.
Gloria took one last look at him, lying like a skinned rabbit, perfect in every way but lifeless. She wanted to cry. This wasn’t right and he’d never stood a chance. It was left to her now to sort out his final resting place.
Maddy’s dreams were full of tunnels with water rushing through and she was trapped on a ledge, but the torrent pushed her out
into a swimming pool and there was little Dieter swimming towards her, pink and smiling. As she swam to him he began to sink and she couldn’t reach him or find him at the bottom of the pool. Diving under the water, she was blinded by green murk, feeling around searching, searching to catch his limb, like catching soap in the bath. He slipped from her and she woke in a panic, sweating, but it was only a dream.
Her room had changed into the attic at the Old Vic and then she sensed the soreness in her belly and the towels between her legs. Suddenly wide awake she knew something awful had happened.
She sat up and her head swam. Where was the baby? Where was Gloria? What had happened last night was a fuzz of images. Was the baby still inside her? She felt the flatness of her stomach, someone had battered her insides and she struggled for the gerry pot. Everything burned and there was blood beneath her.
Then Alice popped her head around the door, sporting her new frizzy perm. ‘You’ve had a bad monthly,’ she sighed. ‘They’re such a mucky nuisance. Do you want some more STs? I’ve got some towels in my room. You do look like death warmed up. Shall I make a cuppa?’
Maddy nodded meekly. She must try and get up and behave as normal, but her slacks were nowhere to be found and Gloria had vanished. There was nothing to give away their secret. The room was tidy, the sheets were clean and she had no recollection of getting out of bed, but the dream was spinning in her head; Little Dieter’s sculptured face, lifeless in her arms. Where was he? Her arms ached to hold him again but it was as if he was never born on 3 April 1948.
Alice brought in some tea and a slice of soggy toast. Maddy was hungry and grateful.
‘Gloria’s gone to the Gunns’,’ she said, and sat on the end of the bed. ‘She’ll pop back at dinnertime. She’s such a good mother’s help. How’s your gran doing? We heard she was failing fast.’
Everyone knew everything in Sowerthwaite and the Belfield doings were always a source of speculation. She mustn’t add to the family woes. In one supreme effort of will Maddy got out of bed, trying not to let Alice see the state she was in.
‘Gloria’s dried your clothes…it’s awful when you get caught short,’ smiled Alice. ‘I’ll bring them up if you like.’
She’d never been so grateful in all her life for these simple acts of kindness, or the fact that trusting Alice believed their story. The cover had held. She accepted another pad, hoping it would hold until she got home. Her breasts were sore now. It was an effort to hook herself into her corset, but she must look normal–as if nothing had happened. As if her insides had not ripped open and delivered a life of sorts.
Mustn’t think about that now, but get dressed, gather her stuff and leave a note for Gloria on the kitchen table, asking her to call round.
They must meet up and then she’d know where little Dieter was and yet she didn’t want to know. Last night was just a blur of pain and fear.
Her mind was racing; confused one minute, relieved the next. What she didn’t know and hadn’t seen wasn’t real. The birth never happened, that was it. Would it be wrong to conceal a birth? Was it a crime? It was all a nightmare and she couldn’t remember. It was as if it had happened to someone else.
Would she get Gloria into trouble? She couldn’t think. It’d never lived so there was no proper birth to disclose. Round and round the excuses, the lies, the images flashed in her fuzzy brain.
The walk back to Brooklyn took every ounce of her strength and all her concentration to put one foot in front of the other. All she could think of was climbing those stairs and creeping under her eiderdown to sleep for a hundred years.
She staggered up the avenue of tears. If it’d lived…What would they have made of this new Belfield, this German-English hybrid? If it had lived would she be making this walk now? Why did she call the thing, it? She didn’t want to recall any of it ever again.
There were cars outside the portico on the gravel drive, black cars and a man in a frock coat came down the stairs and doffed his bowler hat.
‘Ah, Miss Belfield, our deepest condolences on your sad loss,’ he whispered. ‘Sowerthwaite will be diminished by her passing.’
Maddy nodded, not taking in his words at first, but she knew it was Alfred Platt, the joiner, owner of the funeral parlour. Her heart was thudding when she saw Plum scowling as she came down the stairs. Her lips pinched with disapproval.
‘Where on earth have you been? Staying out all night. As if I hadn’t enough to worry about. Couldn’t you not have stayed at home one more day and seen it through with us?’ she snapped.
‘I was only at Gloria’s. Someone could have rung there,’ she replied. ‘Has Grandma…?’ She couldn’t finish the sentence.
‘This morning, very early and peacefully. We were all at her side but you should’ve been there. It was the least you could do after all she’d done for you.’ Maddy had never seen Plum so vexed and agitated. ‘It’s not like you to let us down. I am disappointed in you.’
‘I’m sorry…’
‘So you should be. I thought you might at least have rung to see how things were, but no, when you young ones get together, there’s no thought for anyone else. I might know Gloria Conley would lead you on.’
‘It wasn’t like that. I had a bad period and she looked after me. I couldn’t move. I get them like that and I fell asleep. I’m so sorry,’ Maddy wept. Tears of sadness, frustration and exhaustion were rolling down her face.
‘You do look a bit off. Never mind,’ Plum sighed. ‘Everything’s under control now that Platts are here, but you’ll need something black for the funeral. At least we can give her the send-off she deserves. Oh, Maddy, I wish you’d been here. It would’ve helped me.’
What was there to say to that? If she had blurted out that while Gran was dying she was giving birth to a dead baby, what good would that do?
‘Would you mind if I had a bath? I’m still feeling a bit wonky,’ Maddy said, gripping the banister rail for dear life. It was the only thing holding her up. ‘Are there any aspirins in the cabinet?’
‘Oh, go and sort yourself out. Then you can help me send out funeral invitations for the service. We’re not going to hang about. Gerald is seeing to it with the vicar. At least we’re both hitched to the same wagon on this one.’
Maddy crept up the stairs, checked the hot-water tank, ran a bath with some Dettol in it. She sank into it slowly, letting the heat warm her through and soothe the soreness.
What was she going to do with her blood-soaked clothes? Then she noticed liquid seeping out of her breasts, trickles of juice for a baby that would never suck, and she wept and wept for all that was lost.
She had never felt so alone, so unloved and unnoticed. It was as if something of her had died with the thing she’d birthed last night. Grandma was gone out of the world at the same time. Had she met her baby in the avenue of tears when she joined all her sons in that far-off country? Were they all looking down in disgust?
She could have bled to death but for Gloria’s care. She ought to thank her but to see her would bring it all back again. For a second she wanted to dunk her head under the bathwater and never come up. Who would care what happened to her now? Dieter didn’t care or know her terrible fate. Plum was angry, Uncle Gerald uninterested. No one had a kind word for her. She was on her own again. That was nothing new.
It was time to make herself decent, stuffing pads into her brassiere to soak up the flow. She felt so weak it was all she could do to get downstairs and try to look useful. The whole day went by and still she’d not seen Gloria. They must make their stories tally if Plum was on the warpath.
The next few days were taken up with receiving visitors, ringing guests, finding Maddy something to wear, arranging flowers for the church and trying to stay upright.
The funeral took place on the Friday with all the due ceremony befitting a Belfield; a horse-drawn carriage, men in top hats and frock coats walking before the hearse, curtains were closed and flags lowered, the church bell tolled a bell for every one of h
er years on earth, as was the custom. There were the usual clutch of aged aunts and companions, with sticks and ear trumpets.
The reception was to be at the house. Maddy helped Grace prepare canapés, but outside caterers would see to all the other arrangements. Plum was too busy to talk, Gerald looked distinguished, brisk and brusque with her, but jovial and chirpy with his hunting cronies. It all looked fine on the surface but Plum and Gerry were not speaking to each other.
Maddy was the bridge between the two, relaying messages of condolence. There was no time to visit Gloria and she was hurt that her friend had not bothered to come and check on her.
But maybe she had a point. Better to stay away. The longer they stayed away from each other the easier it was to pretend the birth had never happened. There was nothing to link the two of them. The fact that Maddy looked like death, pale, stumbling and stooping, would be put down naturally to grief.
In her head she thought that the sooner she got back to Leeds and college, the sooner she could put this nightmare behind her–but that gave her no comfort at all.
Somewhere there was a little body laid to rest, hidden away when it should have been here alongside its great grandmother, but that would never happen now.
The Belfield reputation had to be respected and this was no time to draw attention to her own shameful secret.
Gloria went with the Gunns to the funeral, as was expected. The church was full, the vicar droning on about Old Ma Belfield’s virtues, but Gloria could only remember her being a cantankerous old cow, until she recalled that first visit when Mrs Belfield picked her out as one of them by mistake. Thinking she was Maddy.
They were stuck in a side aisle and she didn’t get a chance to speak to Maddy until the handshake at the end.
‘How are you?’ she whispered.
‘I’m fine,’ Maddy blushed, not looking her in the eye. She wore a navy coat with a fur collar, a silly hat perched on her head like a pillbox, over which a black net veil hid her puffy eyes as if she were royalty.